Spelling Difficulties Research Articles

Aphasia and spelling to dictation: Analysis of spelling errors and editing.

IntroductionSpelling difficulty is a common symptom of aphasia and can entail editing difficulties. Previous research has shown that extensive editing is related to a lower production rate in text writing for persons with aphasia, yet editing difficulty is not commonly examined. It is not known if editing difficulty is related to reading and writing skills or to aspects of the word.AimsTo analyse spelling and editing processes as well as errors in a dictation task performed by Swedish‐speaking adults with post‐stroke aphasia. Furthermore, the study aimed to identify any relationships between spelling and editing difficulties and characteristics of individual words. Finally, relationships between successful edits and reading and phonological ability were investigated and specific editing strategies or behaviours identified. Correlation analyses were performed between measures of spelling and editing and word frequency and length as well as participants’ scores on tests of reading, phonological spelling and phonological decoding.Methods & ProceduresA total of 16 Swedish speaking participants with post‐stroke aphasia wrote a word‐dictation task in a keystroke logging program and were tested for phonological spelling, phonological decoding and reading ability. Spelling errors were categorized and analysed.Outcomes & ResultsThe most common error type was omission of letter(s) and there was evidence of aphasia‐specific writing errors. Both spelling and editing difficulty were related to word frequency and word length. Successful editing was related to participants’ scores on the phonological spelling task, but not to phonological decoding or reading ability. Specific editing strategies could be identified, and some strategies were individual, while others were more commonly used.Conclusions & ImplicationsWord length and word frequency should be taken into consideration in spelling tests for persons with aphasia, and the presence of editing difficulty should be taken into account when assessing spelling difficulties. Treatment for writing difficulties in aphasia should include training in successful editing strategies and individual fitting of digital writing aids. What this paper addsWhat is already known on the subject Post‐stroke aphasia often causes writing and spelling difficulties. Spelling difficulties may entail editing difficulties, in turn causing extensive and/or unsuccessful editing. Extensive editing is known to impede productivity in text writing. Still, editing behaviour, abilities relating to editing or what features of a word that causes editing difficulty has not been investigated for persons with aphasia. What this paper adds to existing knowledge This study adds an in‐depth analysis of spelling ability, spelling errors and editing behaviour for persons with aphasia, using keystroke logging and a single‐word dictation task. Results showed that both features of the target word (frequency and word length) and the individual abilities of the person with aphasia (score on a phonological spelling task) related to spelling and editing difficulty, editing behaviour and successful editing. Specific editing strategies were analysed and described. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Word length and word frequency should be taken into consideration when testing single‐word spelling for persons with aphasia. When assessing spelling difficulties, both correctness of spelling as well as the presence and nature of any editing difficulties should be taken into account and treatment for writing difficulties in should include training in successful editing strategies. The fitting of digital writing aids for persons with aphasia should be individual, since many of the editing strategies used were individual.

Linguistic Awareness and English Spelling Difficulties of Iranian EFL Students in Malaysia

The ability to spell properly is usually regarded as a good indicator of one’s level of education (Fagerberg, 2006). In this study spelling difficulties are classified as phonological, morphological, and orthographical difficulties in order to examine the correlation between spelling difficulties and the linguistic awareness of Iranian EFL students in Malaysia. The participants of the study were 41 Iranian EFL students (20 males and 21 females) who were selected purposefully from an Iranian secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A pre-test post-test design adapting a set of tests from Tabrizi et al. (2013) was used to examine the correlation between linguistic awareness and spelling difficulties. Forty words were selected from the second-year English textbook of Iranian EFL students in the pre-test and post-test. Based on the results of the pre-test, the most frequent types of errors were identified. They were related to the Visual Memory, Training Error, Listening Accuracy, Visual Accuracy, Dysgraphia and Visual Sequential Memory. Analysis of the data showed a significant correlation between the participants’ linguistic awareness and phonological, morphological and orthographical spelling difficulties. It was concluded that children’s developing awareness of linguistic features can help them become more proficient language learners. Findings from this study can assist EFL teachers in mitigating the spelling difficulties among young learners. Keywords: linguistic awareness; spelling; difficulties; EFL

A Model of Chinese Spelling Development in Hong Kong Kindergarteners

Copying characters presented previously (delayed copying) is an important skill in Chinese literacy acquisition. The relations of delayed copying and a set of literacy-related skills (including vocabulary knowledge, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic awareness), visual-orthographic judgment, motor coordination, pure copying of foreign scripts, and delayed copying to Chinese spelling were examined among 294 typically developing Hong Kong kindergarteners. With all other variables statistically controlled, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, motor coordination, and delayed copying all uniquely explained Chinese spelling. To further investigate how delayed copying interacts with other skills, path analyses were conducted. The final model showed that vocabulary knowledge, visual-orthographic judgment, and pure copying had indirect effects on spelling through delayed copying. These findings partly support spelling models developed in alphabetic writing systems, but also reflect the uniqueness of Chinese. In addition, results suggest that delayed copying is a unique window into how children learn to write words in Chinese. The potentially critical role of delayed copying in Chinese spelling makes it a potentially good clinical indicator of early spelling proficiency and spelling difficulties.

Specific learning disability in the context of current diagnostic systems and policies in India: Implications for assessment and certification.

Specific Learning Disability (SLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with significant problems in language processing, which are evident through difficulties in reading, writing, spelling, and mathematics. SLD was notified as a disability by the Government of India in 2016. Until then, it was primarily left to the discretion of the individual education boards to decide the assessment procedures and support measures for a child suspected to have SLD. However, with the enforcement of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016 (RPWD Act), there is a legal binding to follow specific guidelines for assessment and certification mentioned in the RPWD Act. Nonetheless, there are issues inherent to the construct of SLD described in the diagnostic manuals and the current certification processes under the RPWD Act. In this context, this paper highlights the discrepancies in the requirements of the RPWD Act and the diagnostic criteria of the International Classification of Diseases -10 (ICD-10) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual- 5 (DSM-5) and draws implications for assessment and certification procedures which will affect the lives of millions of children in the Indian context. It also presents potential solutions and possible future directions related to the assessment of the SLD.

Exploring the effect of an augmented reality literacy programme for reading and spelling difficulties for children diagnosed with ADHD

Children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience a variety of difficulties related to three primary symptoms: hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity. The most common type of ADHD has a combination of all three symptom areas. These core symptoms may negatively impact the academic and social performance of children throughout their school life. The AHA (ADHD-Augmented) project focused specifically on the impact of digital technologies’ intervention on literacy skills of children that participated in the pilot study and were diagnosed with ADHD prior to the intervention. Existing research has shown that augmented reality (AR) can improve academic outcomes by stimulating pupils’ attention. AHA project aimed at implementing an evidence-based intervention to improve ADHD children’s reading and spelling abilities through the enhancement of an existing literacy programme with AR functionality. The present paper reports preliminary findings of the pilot study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of the AHA system in promoting the acquisition of literacy skills in a sample of children diagnosed with ADHD compared to the literacy programme as usual. Background information on the main characteristics and difficulties related to the teaching and learning process associated with children diagnosed with ADHD are first introduced; the design and methodology of the AHA project intervention are also described. The preliminary findings have shown that AHA project succeeded in delivering an AR solution within an existing online literacy programme, which integrates a set of specific technologies and supports interactive educational content, services, assessment, and feedback.

A Study on different Classification Models for predicting Dyslexia

Eye tracking technology is used to record the eye positions and the movements of the eye using the optical tracking of corneal reflections. Eye tracking data collected this way can be used in a wide variety of applications like gaming, marketing, cognitive ability and psychology. One of the applications of eye tracking data is to predict whether an individual has a learning disability like Dyslexia. Dyslexia is the most common neurological learning disability which manifests in the form of difficulty in reading and spelling. Although eye tracking data is recorded and available, there is a scarcity of studies done in analysing the data and understanding the hidden relationship and classifying it appropriately. This research intends to study different classification models like Logistic Regression, Gaussian NB, SVC, Decision Tree and so on. that are applied in the prediction of risk of Dyslexia. The paper also presents the result of the accuracy of different classification models in predicting the risk of Dyslexia.

Preliminary Validation of the CI-FRA Checklist: A Simple Screening Tool for Measuring the Early Signs of Reading and Spelling Disorders in Italian Primary Students.

Although several screening tests for recognizing early signs of reading and spelling difficulties have been developed, brief and methodologically grounded tools for teachers are very limited. The present study aimed to lay the foundation for a new screening tool for teachers: the Checklist for early Indicators of risk Factors in Reading Ability (CI-FRA). The proposed checklist consists of 20 items, based on a 7-point Likert scale, and it investigates five domains: reading, writing, attention, and motor skills. Six hundred sixty-seven children were evaluated by 40 teachers during the first year of primary school and, longitudinally, in the second year. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were applied to verify structural validity. Concurrent validity was assessed by Spearman correlation to analyze the link between CI-FRA and reading and spelling standardized tests and cognitive tests. Reliability was assessed by Cronbach α and interclass correlation coefficient. The CFA reported a three-factor structure as the optimal solution, including language (reading and writing), visuospatial attention, and fine motor skills subscales. Good reliability, good internal consistency, and acceptable test–retest indices were found. Concurrent validity was confirmed by significant correlations between CI-FRA total score and standardized reading and spelling test, as well as by correlations between CI-FRA subscales and neuropsychological standardized test scores. Preliminary evaluation of sensitivity by receiver operating characteristic curves showed that the CI-FRA score has particularly high sensitivity and specificity for word reading speed deficit. In conclusion, the results confirm that CI-FRA is a theoretically grounded and statistically valid tool that could help the teachers to screen for early signs of reading and spelling difficulties.

The Development of Spelling for Children with/without Spelling Difficulties

ë°°ê²½ 및 ëª©ì  본 연구는 읽기이해에서 ì–´ë ¤ì›€ì´ 없으나, ì² ìž 쓰기에서 ì €ì„±ì·¨ì— 있는 ì² ìž 쓰기 부진 아동과 일반 아동을 대상으로 3중 단어 êµ¬ì„±ë¡ ì„ ê³ ë ¤í•˜ì—¬ ì² ìž 쓰기 ëŠ¥ë ¥ì´ 초등 ì €, 중, ê³ ë¡œ 가면서 어떻게 발달하는지 비교, 대조하였다. 방법 초등학교 ì €, 중, ê³ í•™ë „ 아동 각 20ëª ì”© 60ëª ê³¼ í•™ë „ì´ 일치하는 일반 아동 60ëª ìœ¼ë¡œ 총 120ëª ì´ 받아쓰기를 통해 작성한 38ì–´ì ˆ, 254개 자소를 분석하였다. 음운 지식, 형태 지식, ì² ìž 지식을 í™œìš©í• ìˆ˜ 있는 ì–´ì ˆì„ 포함하였다. ê²°ê³¼ 첫째, 일반 아동은 자소-음소 1:1 일치 자소, 문법형태소 자소 쓰기에서 ì €í•™ë „ì‹œê¸°ë¶€í„° ì² ìž 완성 단계에 해당하였다. 반면 ì² ìž 부진 아동은 ê³ í•™ë „ 시기에서야 해당 ìœ í˜•ì˜ ì² ìž 쓰기가 완성되는 경향을 보였다. 둘째, 자소-음소 1:1 불일치 자소는 일반 아동도 ê³ í•™ë „ì— 이르러서야 ì™„ì„±ë˜ì—ˆê³ , ì² ìž 부진 아동은 완성 단계에 도달하지 못하였다. 특히, 초등 ì¤‘í•™ë „ì˜ 경우 가장 큰 격차를 보여 상호작용 효과가 나타났다. ë ¼ì˜ 및 ê²°ë¡ ì² ìž 부진 아동의 ì² ìž 쓰기 지도는 ì €í•™ë „ 시기부터 ì§‘ì¤‘ì ìœ¼ë¡œ 이루어질 필요가 있으며, 자소-음소 일치 여부 및 문법형태소를 ê³ ë ¤í•œ 지도 계획이 중요함을 시사해준다. ì €í•™ë „ì—ëŠ” 자소-음소 일치 ì–´ì ˆì„ 중심으로 하며, ì¤‘í•™ë „ë¶€í„° ê³ í•™ë „ê¹Œì§€ 음운규칙이 ì ìš©ë˜ëŠ” 자소-음소 불일치 ì–´ì ˆì„ 중심으로 지도가 필요하다. Keywords: ì² ìž 쓰기 발달, ì² ìž 쓰기 부진, 자소-음소 일치도, 삼중 단어 구성 이ë¡

Videoconferencing Interventions for Children with Reading and Spelling Difficulties: A Pilot Study.

Background: Many children in rural and remote areas do not have access to professionals providing literacy interventions. However, delivery of services through videoconferencing would increase access and choice for end users. Introduction: This pilot study investigated the efficacy of videoconferencing literacy interventions. As videoconferencing platforms become easier and cheaper to use, this form of telehealth delivery is increasing in popularity. However, there is currently no strong evidence base to support this practice. Materials and Methods: We studied 18 children, aged 7-12 years, with poor reading and/or spelling, and whose literacy interventions were videoconferenced into their homes and/or schools. Children were tested on three reading measures: (1) reading words, (2) reading nonwords, and (3) letter-sound knowledge, twice before their interventions commenced and once after their intervention concluded. Results: Children's raw and standardized scores on 2 of 3 outcome measures increased significantly more during the intervention than in the no-intervention period before their training commenced. Discussion and Conclusions: This study demonstrates that videoconferencing is a promising delivery mode for literacy interventions, and the results justify running a larger, randomized controlled trial.

Facilitating Effect of Grapheme and Syllable Cues on the Writing Performance of Children with Chinese Dictation Difficulties

Spelling difficulties is referred to as dictation difficulties in China. The visual-auditory binding deficit hypothesis suggested that Chinese dictation difficulties can be correlated with deficits in binding visual and auditory information. However, how Chinese characters are mentally represented in children with dictation difficulties remained unexplored. In this study, 20 children with dictation difficulties and 18 chronically age-matched controls completed dictation tasks using grapheme cues, syllable cues, and grapheme-syllable cues. Dictation accuracy was recorded. Findings showed that under the grapheme cue condition, dictation accuracy between the two groups did not differ significantly; under the grapheme-syllable and the syllable condition, dictation accuracy in children with dictation difficulties was significantly lower compared to controls. These findings supported that the graphemic and phonological representations of Chinese characters might loosely associated in the mental lexicon of children with dictation difficulties. Intervention strategies should take into account improving their ability to associate graphemes and syllables of Chinese characters.

Handwriting production in Spanish children with dyslexia: spelling or motor difficulties?

Spelling and handwriting are different processes; however, they are learned simultaneously, and numerous studies have shown that they interact. Besides the commonly reported presence of a spelling deficit, previous studies have indicated that handwriting difficulties can also be detected in children with dyslexia. Despite this, this issue has not been sufficiently explored. The goal of the study was to investigate the potential handwriting difficulties met by children with dyslexia and how they might relate to spelling difficulties and to basic graphic skills. Twenty children with dyslexia were compared with a chronological age-matched group and reading level-matched group. Participants completed a spelling-to-dictation task of words and pseudowords, an alphabet writing task, and two graphic tasks. Results showed that children with dyslexia were less accurate and slower in preparing and executing the written response than typically developing peers, but they showed the spelling level expected given their reading ability. Children with dyslexia also performed similarly to children with the same reading level in the alphabet and graphic tasks, with both groups being slower and less fluent than the control age group. Altogether, the results suggest the existence of a delay in the development of handwriting and graphic fluency related to the level of reading and spelling skills rather than the presence of a core deficit affecting fine motor skills in dyslexia. In this sense, it seems that reduced literacy skills can affect the development of other skills that are usually enhanced with handwriting practice, such as fine motor skills.

Learning to spell for children 5-8 years of age: The importance of an integrated approach to ensure the development of phonic, orthographic and morphemic knowledge at compatible levels.

This paper considers samples of independent writing highlighting the integral role of phonology, orthography and morphology in spelling development for children from 5-6 years to 7-8 years (3 years of formal schooling). It also introduces an approach to monitoring spelling development by considering the sources of knowledge that are evident in children's attempts to spell when writing independently. Synthetic phonics can be a powerful and effective strategy for both reading and spelling; however when the development of a synthetic phonics strategy fails to take account of the importance of compatibility with orthographic and morphemic knowledge its predominant use can lead to long term spelling difficulties for children who cannot acquire this knowledge from implicit learning when reading. Furthermore, this paper proposes that there may be an optimum period for ensuring the interaction between phonemic, orthographic and morphemic knowledge (5-6 years to 7-8 years; 3 years of formal schooling) during which time significant gains can be made for all children. This optimum period is particularly important for children who are at risk of long-term spelling difficulties because they spell by sounds alone as a result of insensitivity to orthographic and ortho-morphemic patterns.

Grammatical Spelling and Written Syntactic Awareness in Children With and Without Dyslexia.

Children with dyslexia face persistent difficulties in acquiring not only reading skills but also spelling skills. Among difficulties in spelling, problems in grammatical spelling have been studied very rarely. The goal of the study is to better understand grammatical spelling difficulties in children with dyslexia by assessing written syntactic awareness skills, a linguistic factor that has not been investigated in the context of spelling until now. It is worth noting that while morphological awareness has been well studied in children with dyslexia, only very few studies have focused on syntactic awareness, which is, however, necessary to produce number or gender agreement. Twenty children with dyslexia were matched to typically developing children on both chronological age and on grammatical spelling level. All the children were asked to perform a subject verb agreement grammatical spelling test and a written syntactic awareness test on the same sentences, as well as control measures. Results demonstrated that the children with dyslexia performed equally compared to grammatical spelling matched children in grammatical spelling, whilst they performed less well compared to children of the same age. For syntactic awareness, they were less accurate at identifying the subject of the complex sentences than spelling age matched children, even though both groups were matched in grammatical spelling. These results demonstrate that children with dyslexia face a specific deficit in written syntactic awareness. It highlights how better understanding of the spelling difficulty will better guide treatment.

The Spelling Errors of French and English Children With Developmental Language Disorder at the End of Primary School.

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) often struggle learning to spell. However, it is still unclear where their spelling difficulties lie, and whether they reflect on-going difficulties with specific linguistic domains. It is also unclear whether the spelling profiles of these children vary in different orthographies. The present study compares the spelling profiles of monolingual children with DLD in France and England at the end of primary school. By contrasting these cohorts, we explored the linguistic constraints that affect spelling, beyond phono-graphemic transparency, in two opaque orthographies. Seventeen French and 17 English children with DLD were compared to typically developing children matched for age or spelling level. Participants wrote a 5 min sample of free writing and spelled 12 controlled dictated words. Spelling errors were analyzed to capture areas of difficulty in each language, in the phonological, morphological, orthographic and semantic domains. Overall, the nature of the errors produced by children with DLD is representative of their spelling level in both languages. However, areas of difficulty vary with the language and task, with more morphological errors in French than in English across both tasks and more orthographic errors in English than in French dictated words. The error types produced by children with DLD also differed in the two languages: segmentation and contraction errors were found in French, whilst morphological ending errors were found in English. It is hypothesized that these differences reflect the phonological salience of the units misspelled in both languages. The present study also provides a detailed breakdown of the spelling errors found in both languages for children with DLD and typical peers aged 5–11.

Collecting Words: A Clinical Example of a Morphology-Focused Orthographic Intervention.

Purpose Morphological interventions promote gains in morphological knowledge and in other oral and written language skills (e.g., phonological awareness, vocabulary, reading, and spelling), yet we have a limited understanding of critical intervention features. In this clinical focus article, we describe a relatively novel approach to teaching morphology that considers its role as the key organizing principle of English orthography. We also present a clinical example of such an intervention delivered during a summer camp at a university speech and hearing clinic. Method Graduate speech-language pathology students provided a 6-week morphology-focused orthographic intervention to children in first through fourth grade (n = 10) who demonstrated word-level reading and spelling difficulties. The intervention focused children's attention on morphological families, teaching how morphology is interrelated with phonology and etymology in English orthography. Results Comparing pre- and posttest scores, children demonstrated improvement in reading and/or spelling abilities, with the largest gains observed in spelling affixes within polymorphemic words. Children and their caregivers reacted positively to the intervention. Therefore, data from the camp offer preliminary support for teaching morphology within the context of written words, and the intervention appears to be a feasible approach for simultaneously increasing morphological knowledge, reading, and spelling. Conclusion Children with word-level reading and spelling difficulties may benefit from a morphology-focused orthographic intervention, such as the one described here. Research on the approach is warranted, and clinicians are encouraged to explore its possible effectiveness in their practice. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12290687.

AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

This research aims to describe the students’ difficulties in writing descriptive text and to find out the causes of students’ difficulties in writing descriptive text. This research uses quantitative descriptive methods. The research subjects are X MIPA 6 students of SMAN 1 Sukodadi who had difficulties when writing descriptive text, the data of this research are the result of students’ worksheet and the students’ answer in interview. This research used documentation and interview to collect the data. Data reduction, data display and drawing conclusion was used to analyze the data. The result of this research shows that the students of X MIPA 6 have difficulty in writing descriptive text, the difficulties are difficulties in generic structure, difficulties in grammar, and difficulties in spelling. While the factors that cause the students’ difficulties in writing descriptive text are lack of proficiency in the text production skills, lack of knowledge relating to the subject contents of the script to be written, and lack of interest in learning English. Keywords: Students’ difficulties, descriptive text

A mobile game as a support tool for children with severe difficulties in reading and spelling

AbstractWe used a randomized controlled trial to investigate if a mobile game, GraphoLearn (GL), could effectively support the learning of first graders (N = 70), who have severe difficulties in reading and spelling. We studied the effects of two versions of the game: GL Reading, which focused on training letter‐sound correspondence and word reading; and GL Spelling, which included additional training in phonological skills and spelling. During the spring of first grade, the children trained with tablet computers which they could carry with them during the six‐week intervention. The average exposure time to training was 5 hr 44 min. The results revealed no differences in the development of reading or spelling skills between GL players and the control group. However, pre‐training self‐efficacy moderated the effect among GL Reading players: children with high self‐efficacy developed more than the control group in word reading fluency, whereas children with low self‐efficacy developed less than the control group in spelling.

Spellcheck has a positive impact on spelling accuracy and might improve lexical diversity in essays written by students with dyslexia.

It is widely assumed that by identifying spelling errors and suggesting replacement words, spellcheck allows writers to revise spelling errors even if they do not have the necessary spelling knowledge. However, there have been no studies evaluating the efficacy of modern spellcheck tools for students with spelling difficulties, such as dyslexia. In fact, the very limited and dated research into use of spellcheck by writers with dyslexia indicated that, even when using spellcheck to revise spelling errors, this group left many misspellings in their texts. The current study is the first to investigate whether a modern spellcheck program allows college students with dyslexia to produce texts that are as free from misspellings as texts by their peers, and whether this affects the quality of the text in other ways.College students with dyslexia (n=18) and a control group of peers (n=18) wrote two short essays using Microsoft Word, one with spellcheck active and one without spellcheck active. Spelling accuracy and overall quality of the texts were measured. Without spellcheck, students with dyslexia made more misspellings than the control group, however, with spellcheck active students from both groups left almost zero misspelled words in their texts. Text quality was not affected. Results demonstrate that spellcheck helps college students with dyslexia to overcome the limitations that poor spelling knowledge imposes. Importantly, results indicate that spellcheck does not lead to improvements in text beyond spelling accuracy, or lead to poorer quality texts, indicating that it is suitable for use in exam conditions.

Teachers’ opinions regarding the symptoms of central auditory processing disorder in children with reading and writing difficulties

Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) refers to difficulties in perceptual processing of auditory information. It is a difficulty experienced by a person whose pure tone hearing, intelligence, and language abilities are within the appropriate age norms. In children with CAPD, difficulty in spelling and reading loudly can also be observed. Symptom scales (or questionnaires) are required to determine the presence of CAPD-like symptoms. If risks are found in the scales, the children are referred for diagnosis. The study reported on here aimed to investigate whether CAPD symptoms were underlying to reading and writing difficulty. Eight state schools were randomly selected. The questionnaire evaluating the presence of the CAPD symptoms was answered by 32 teachers for 328 children in total. While the children without reading and writing difficulty did not have CAPD indications, the probability of having CAPD was significantly higher in the children with reading and writing difficulties (p < 0.001). When gender effect was examined, a higher CAPD symptom score was found in males. As a result of the 18-item questionnaire, it was detected that children with CAPD symptoms had a significant disadvantage in reading and writing compared to children who did not have these symptoms. Children with CAPD symptoms should be referred for diagnosis if the CAPD indications are identified. Keywords: central auditory processing disorder; initial reading and writing skills; reading and writing difficulties; reading and writing difficulty questionnaire

Study on the Selection of Words in College English Writing

Selection of words is an important part in college English writing. A perfect writing largely depends on the right choice of words. By means of a writing test and a questionnaire, a survey was carried out upon 100 freshmen with non-English majors from two classes to investigate the challenges of the selection of words in writing. The findings indicate that students have major difficulties in spelling, meaning conveying, concise expressing, style of words, and so on. Thus, the study puts forward some effective methods in lexical, grammatical and stylistic aspects to improve the selection of words. Furthermore, the researcher attains valuable reflection on the teaching of college English writing. The reflection includes the cultivation of students’ writing accomplishment and writing interest, the adoption of flexible teaching methods in writing class, and effective use of online writing platforms. Finally, an interview with 35 respondents has proved the teaching effect. So the study can be implemented by students and teachers to enhance the learning and teaching of English writing.